kronisk

Lots of greenwashing going on here too. The nordic countries are just as capitalist as anywhere else, we just had a strong labour movement in the 19th and 20th century. And sadly, a lot of what was won has been slowly whittling away in the last decades due to the complacency and inaction of the generations after.

Well, but what does “caring” mean? It means that their well-being affects your emotions.

That would be an extremely reductive definition that doesn’t really tell us much about how caring for others is actually experienced and how it manifests in the world. How would this for example explain sacrificing yourself to save another person, if the very core of caring is to create positive emotions in yourself? Dying is a pretty negative thing to experience and there will be no more positive emotions for you after that. I guess this idea that caring is in its essence transactional feels profound to people because we’re so ingrained with capitalist ideology… but it’s a lot more complex and multifaceted than that.

Of course, you only ever do things because there’s something in it for you,

No, sometimes you do things because you care about other people and want to help them. That you also probably feel better about yourself than you would if you did shitty things all day doesn’t mean that feeling is the only and single motivation.

We hear that argument a lot, and though some people’s charity may be motivated purely by egoism I don’t think it applies to the majority at all. The argument assumes that if doing something makes you feel good, then that feeling must be the sole motivation for that action, which is dubious. And if we follow this logic to its natural conclusion, every action that does not make you feel bad is egoistic, and the concept becomes completely meaningless. Saving a child from falling down a cliff? Egoistic! Intervening when someone is treated unfairly? Egoistic! Giving up your chair for an elderly person on a crowded bus? Egoistic!

Let’s take this last (admittedly small, everyday, non-dramatic) example. Sure, you could give up your seat purely because you want to look like a good person to others (although it’s doubtful anyone would even notice). It’s also possible to experience this feeling called empathy, to see an elderly person struggling to keep their balance while standing up and to want to alleviate that particular suffering. Everyone else is sitting down looking at their phones, so there’s no community pressure to speak of. No one would call you out if you just pretended not to notice. And the discomfort from standing up on a really crowded bus on a bumpy road could easily outweigh that little buzz you get from doing good.

I’ll go even further; it’s even possible, in a scenario like this, to not even think about how it’s going to make you feel or your self-image or whatever. You just want to help someone else because it’s in your power to do so. If this isn’t an example of not being egoistic, what would be? What would be the opposite of egoism? To act completely dispassionately?

And what about someone sacrificing their own life to save another? Striving to do good in the world does feel better, yes, but empathy is also a burden. Still, there are genuinely good people out there, that do good deeds and do not take any credit for it, even do it anonymously. And I can tell you from experience, not all of them walk around on clouds feeling like saints. Some of them even experience crippling guilt because they feel they do not do enough. How is that egoism?

Best and easiest way is to reverse image search from a photo, it’s easy to look through the results for yourself and see what actually matches (it’s frequently not the first search result). Perhaps there’s some kind of AI involved in reverse image search, but searching like this is infinitely preferable to me instead of some bot telling me an answer which may or may not be correct. It’s not “convenient” if you actually care about the answer.

Or less refined…

IDK if it’s the ADHD or the autism, but I hate logos on clothes.

It’s neither; you are just a person of some integrity and intelligence. Nothing wrong with paying more for quality and durability, but if you’re paying more to be a walking ad, well… let’s just say it’s not flattering look. (I get that not everyone are sensitive to these things though, and that unbranded clothes are hard to find.)

I refuse to buy anything with a visible brand - I even remove the neck and washing labels inside of garments. When I bought it, it’s mine, it’s not [brand name]s anymore. Sneakers and similar shoes are harder to find unbranded, sometimes you can remove sown-on labels, sometimes I even tape over labels with black tape.

It actually makes wearing the clothes a much better experience as well. Instead of thinking that I’m wearing a shirt from [expensive brand], I see the shirt for what it is.

Obra Dinn is such a unique experience, a shame (though unavoidable) that there is zero replay value though. My jaw literally dropped a few times during that game.

Favourite Amiga games: Secret of Monkey Island 1&2, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Rick Dangerous 1&2, Pirates!, Flashback, Lemmings, Eye of the Beholder…just off the top of my head

Favourite now: The Witness, Braid, Portal, Obra Dinn, Papers Please, Fez, Talos Principle, BoTW, The Last Door…etc.

I enjoyed the movie Driveways that in part is about cleaning out a hoarder’s house. Plus it’s got Brian Dennehy in it, it’s his last movie before he died.

“Monster” fatberg found blocking east London sewer

I was wondering why I hadn’t seen your mom around lately

I agree, it should have ended after Ancient Greese.

Well, besides eventual differences in cognitive ability, this probably has a lot more to do with that a lot of teenagers today aren’t responsible for much at all. In smaller communities, you see the event chain much clearer. You probably know who has to fix the ruined thing. Perhaps you even have to help out yourself. To put it simply, you don’t shit where you drink. This of course presupposes that the small community is a community to begin with; connections and relations between people and their environment need work, need to be maintained.

In a modern context or a larger city, you have much less of an immediate connection to the consequences of breaking, say, a streetlight. Someone else has to clean it up, someone else has to fix it, and they probably get paid for doing so anyway. And this is the typical attitude of everyone around you, this is what you learn.

But to turn this around, most of the environment around you in modern society actually has nothing to do with you. In an urban environment, not much is “yours” and you have little direct investment in anything. You’re a guest in your own living space. And with this in mind, why should you care about some streetlight? Or some building you’re not even allowed to enter? Or a street full of billboards for products other people make money from?

So you simply already need to know what you’re asking it, gotcha. Seems easy enough.

I had a coworker in the early 00s that would repeatedly fail to search for something because she would type “www.goggles.com” into the address bar.

Bear meme

How about punk rock is the only thing that is punk rock, starting now?

Nazis are absolutely vilified in Sweden and Finland, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’d say NSBM bands is a lot more prevalent in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Well, I was amused at first, but not anymore. Good night.

I’m not trying to make a “case.”

You see, sometimes people use expressions like that in an informal, half-joking manner. But I’m starting to get a feeling for why you seem to be taking this conversation so personally…let’s do something else now, shall we?